1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method for producing a liquid ejecting head provided with a piezoelectric element having a first electrode, a piezoelectric layer, and a second electrode, a liquid ejecting head, and a liquid ejecting device.
2. Related Art
A piezoelectric element for use in liquid ejecting heads, such as an ink jet recording head, is an element in which a piezoelectric layer containing a piezoelectric material showing an electromechanical conversion function is interposed between two electrodes. As the piezoelectric layer, a piezoelectric layer containing lead, zirconium, and titanium, such a piezoelectric layer using lead zirconate titanate (PZT) or the like, has been proposed, for example (e.g., Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-223404).
In order for the piezoelectric element for use in a liquid ejecting head or the like to demonstrate excellent piezoelectric properties with which a high displacement can be obtained with a low voltage, it is important that vector components of a polarization moment are present in the direction of an applied electric field. This is because the domain having a polarization moment in a direction opposite to the direction of an electric field contributes to reduce the piezoelectric properties.
Therefore, for example, after a piezoelectric layer is formed, an electric field in the direction same as that of a driving electric field to be applied at the time of liquid ejecting is applied to the piezoelectric layer to thereby perform initialization for making the directions of polarization moments uniform.
However, during the initialization for making the polarization moments of the piezoelectric layer uniform, a relatively high electric field is applied. Therefore, a high energy is required to increase the cost and also the application of a high electric field has had a possibility of deterioration, breakage, or the like of the piezoelectric layer.
Such problems are not limited to ink jet recording heads, but similarly arise in liquid ejecting heads for ejecting other liquids other than ink.